Beginners Guide

If you own an Android Wear device, you know how finicky the device can be, especially if you have even considered switching it to a new phone. In fact, every time I try to attach an Android Wear watch to another phone (or attempt to trick it into pulling an OTA), I have to factory reset it. It’s a massive pain in the ass to me, but then again, most people probably won’t be switching their watch over to another phone as regularly as I do.

But let’s say you do switch more often than any normal human should. You probably can’t stand the tutorial that pops up each and every time you reset your watch, right? You know, the frustrating-to-navigate tour that includes confusing swiping instructions and a random temperature screen that still isn’t even a real thing. Guess what? You can skip it! (more…)

Because you can’t pull the battery if something goes wrong with your Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge and it freezes, you should probably know how to fix it. Well, you should at least know how to reboot it and unfreeze the little guy. Thankfully, Samsung is here to save the day with a helpful tip that won’t go away in your notification area until you view it. (more…)

Over the weekend, as I was slaving away in the kitchen doing my breakfast chef thang, my wife sat playing with our son on the floor, trying to figure out how to copy an RMLS listing number from an email into a web browser on her Nexus 5. Since I do tasks like that all of the time, I shouted from across the room, “It’s the card-stacked looking icon to copy!” That description made little sense to her, because well, it’s not actually a great description, so I ended up walking away from my sizzling bacon for a few minutes to help her figure it out. We walked through the process, to which she said two things – “What are all these silly icons?” and “How is anyone supposed to know that that is what they do?” I really had no response, other than, “You are right. I could see how those could be confusing.” And with that, the inspiration for this post! (more…)

Now that it is 2015 – hell, even dating back to 2012 – you should know how to sign a PDF document without having to print a piece of paper. If you don’t yet, that’s OK, because the inspiration behind this post is the fact that almost the entire Droid Life team had no idea how to do this until a day or so ago (you know who you are). Thankfully, we can teach you in the easiest of ways, because Adobe Reader has signature support built in. Didn’t know that either? Well, good, now you do. (more…)

I get that the timing of this post seems super silly, especially after the conversations we had yesterday, including one where I said I don’t buy Nexus phones to flash all the things, but you know what? Many of you did buy a Nexus 6 or Nexus 9 to do just that, flash and tinker, so we want to make sure you know how to get started. Also, the process for unlocking the Nexus 6 or Nexus 9’s bootloader that we are about to walk through is something I do with all Nexus devices I own, because there is always a chance I may want to tinker later on down the road. Why not be prepared? (more…)

With an update to Android 4.4W.2, Android Wear now supports music playback while offline, which is a fancy way of saying that it is not connected to your phone. This is a pretty useful new feature, as you can pair your watch with a Bluetooth headset, leave your phone behind, and enjoy music on the go (it’s great for workouts where you don’t want to lug your massive phone around).

Since many of you are now receiving this new 4.4W.2 update, we thought it was time to walk you through the steps on how to setup this new functionality. The entire process can be a bit tricky, and is also insanely slow, so let’s talk it out together. (more…)

Let’s just get this out there: remembering passwords is the worst. We all know that we are supposed to have complicated, long passwords that have nothing to do with our history. We are supposed to have a new password for every site and the list goes on from there. Unless you are a human supercomputer, doing all that is not very easy.

Luckily for us, there is a growing market out there for password managers and lockers that make the whole process very easy. Let’s take a look at few of these services that are out there and discuss just how you can use them to keep your accounts and passwords safe. (more…)

Shortly before Google released Android 4.4 “Kit Kat” into the wild, they announced that a change was coming to how the OS tolerated SMS apps. In the past, you could have any number of apps on your phone set to receive SMS messages. From the stock messaging app to third party beauties like Sliding Messaging, the whole SMS world was wide open and a free-for-all of sorts. So with Kit Kat, Google has tried to tighten that all up by limiting the OS to allowing one app to essentially send and receive SMS and MMS messages.

As is the case any time a change like this happens, we want to make sure you know how to handle it going forward. Google has actually built in a system setting for Android 4.4 that allows you to toggle between SMS apps that are installed on your phone, you just need to know where to find it. Let’s open the beginners’ guideand take a look! (more…)

About Droid Life

We consider ourselves to have the greatest Android community in the world, here at Droid Life. We talk general news, feature apps, review phones, and even teach you how to hack a little. But most importantly, there is no place on the internet that has the reader participation that we do and consider ourselves to be completely community driven. If you were looking for the best place to learn about Android and talk with like-minded folks about all things tech, then Droid Life is for you.